UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- The head of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Ann Veneman, will visit quake- struck Haiti on Thursday to help launch a massive immunization campaign, which will vaccinate 2.5 million Haitians, a UNICEF spokesperson told Xinhua on Wednesday.
"The time is critical in this kind of thing because if you start to get an outbreak then it can spread very quickly in the unhygienic conditions that exist in Haiti," Kate Donovan said. " Children are 100 percent vulnerable because many children are malnourished so their natural resistance to any disease is really reduced."
The immunization campaign, which targets measles, diphtheria and tetanus, initially aims to vaccinate 530,00 children under the age of seven. However, UNICEF hopes to eventually reach 2.5 million adults throughout Haiti, said Donovan, who preferred not to give a timeline due to the sheer difficulty of such an operation.
"It's a massive vaccination campaign that's going to start in stages," she said. "Initially, we'll start in Port-au-Prince and then we'll go out to affected areas."
Of the initial group of children, 250,000 will live in makeshift settlements, one of which Veneman will visit. UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) will set up immunizations centers and make an attempt to find those most vulnerable, said Donavan.
The WHO has warned that children are at high risk to water- borne diseases, which can lead to diarrhea diseases. The health agency says it is receiving reports of a growing number of cases of diarrhea, measles and tetanus.
Veneman's three-day trip begins on Wednesday when her first stop is the Dominican Republic. There, she will meet with President Leonel Antonio Fernandez to discuss a range of challenges facing children, including, possibly, child abductions.
UNICEF has warned that incidents of child trafficking are often reported after emergencies. Just last week, 10 American Baptist missionaries were arrested when they were caught trying to cross into the Dominican Republic from Haiti with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned after the Jan 12. earthquake, reports said.
Haitian police have said some of the children have living parents, according to local media reports. The group of detainees appeased before a Haitian judge on Tuesday. Officials have suggested that the group could be tried in the U.S. if Haiti's devastated court system appears unable to handle the case.
